After two comfortable home victories over Rochdale and Bradford, when it could be argued that we had beaten poor opposition, we extended the winning run to three against a Halifax team that have reached the Challenge Cup semi-finals.

When the Halifax team ran out, there was a whole team of established top end Championship players, but we didn’t allow them to play and we put in our best performance of the season.

After Swinton’s victory in Toulouse, it had the feel of a must-win game for me. Not because we would have been out of touch mathematically, but simply because we had to prove to ourselves that we were capable of beating these types of teams.

It is fair to say that we are going to have to repeat that performance and look for victories in our remaining home games against Toulouse, Leigh, York, Bradford and Batley, not to mention picking up road victories at Dewsbury and Swinton.

We probably don’t have to win all of those games, but we may have to pick up four more.

After yesterday I know we are good enough. When we have close to a full squad available we know we are capable of mixing it with any team in the division.

The key thing is that we don’t allow ourselves to get down to the bare bones and have to start playing semi-injured players.

We have brought Ben White in from Halifax who I know will be an excellent signing. Jake Carter’s performance on Sunday is now going to give the coaching staff a selection headache, but that’s the sort of problem we like.

The door isn’t closed on further recruitment and I can assure you we are still working hard to bring the right calibre player in.

It will be a massive shame if we lose our survival fight with all the work we have been doing this season, so we will be doing everything in our power to start to climb the table.

The players and the coaching staff have never stopped working and it is to their credit that they have not lost belief when perhaps others have been close to throwing in the towel. That hard work deserves to be rewarded.

We have a number of players who are close to returning to the side like Nathan Mossop, Dan and Shane Toal, Ryan Johnston and Declan Hulme.

This will be a massive boost to us. If we can add another player or two then we will be in good shape to attack the final stretch of the season.

It may be that the clubs that are running thin squads get caught out in the final weeks of the season.

This could still turn out to be an exciting season and we are all grateful that our fans have continued to support us through our sticky spell. Let’s hope we can reward them for that loyalty.